This is NOT earth shattering people! All of your characters, minus a few that are utilizing feats they no longer qualify for, are perfectly fine and playable. +1/6 is a little too much of a cut from +1/2 IMO, but +1/2 was pretty ridiculous. There was a reason that everyone was taking this FCB. It was mechanically well above everything else. As such, it was bound to be brought back down to reality / "nerfed."

I think, in a vacuum, it wouldn't have been a big deal. I agree those options were very powerful, and probably should have been nerfed more toward 1/4 level or so.

However it came right on the heels of the ACG errata, which completely obliterated a lot of character builds. Personally, out of my 12 living PFS characters, 5 had some amount of retraining, and one was changed so much I'm still not sure how to fix him.

On top of that, it came out the day before GenCon starts, so it's a recipe for a lot of confusion and frustration as people try to get everything fixed. The errata should have been released after GenCon, and especially after the retraining rules were worked out.

John, do you have any foresight to offer regarding the purge of Opportune Parry and Riposte? I'm sure I'm not the only one who built a character around that deed who got it removed wholesale from his/her build.

Just because a Pharasmin inquisitor believes the necromancer deserves to die, doesn't mean that he has to do it himself.

Inquisitor: "Because I swore an oath to the Pathfinder Society to cooperate, your life is safe in my hands while we remain teammates."
Necromancer: "Thanks, I appreciate that."
Inquisitor: "I also swore an oath to report, so I should tell you that I sent a dossier on you to my church superiors, and they may come to... visit you."
Necromancer: *jumps out window*

Citation needed. Subdomains function mechanically similar to archetypes, but nowhere in the rules does it say, or even imply, they are counted as such.

DM Beckett wrote:

For example, a Cleric gets two Domains, so can take two Archtypes that remove a Domain, (leaving them without any Domains),

There are no archetypes that "remove a domain." There are archetypes that give you only one domain, but they cannot be combined with each other.

DM Beckett wrote:

but could not combine one that removes a Domain and another that swaps a Domain for another.

I'm not sure what you mean by "swap a domain for another." There are archetypes that restrict your choice of domain, and it's true that they cannot be combined with archetypes that give you only one domain, because they both alter the Domain class feature. Or are you talking about "swapping" a subdomain for a domain? Again, subdomains are not archetypes, so they can be combined with archetypes that alter the Domain class feature.

Are you looking specifically for martial builds? Because the small size can be quite an asset, and not much of a liability, for a spellcaster. Especially when using rays, and the Dex bonus and size bonus of a Halfling or Wayang gives an effective +2 on attack rolls with your ranged touch attacks.

Personally, I've got a Gnome Illusionist wizard in Core, plus a Wayang Lore Warden archer fighter and Halfling ninja/Mouser swashbuckler. The lack of a Str penalty on Wayangs makes them great for small martial builds, and even on Halflings and Gnomes, the Str penalty doesn't hurt as much for archers as it would for regular melee builds. Not to mention all the Dex-to-damage options (agile weapons, Unchained rogue, Slashing/Fencing Grace...).

Chad, it looks like you've been really upset by your experience so far, so I recommend you take some time to cool off before looking for answers, because your tone is putting a lot of people off.

If you have concerns about how you were treated by your GMs, you can contact your local Venture Officer about it. If they can't or won't help you, you can email Mike.Brock@paizo.com, the Campaign Coordinator.

If you want help creating a character that meets your expectations, you can head over to the Advice forum, which is full of people willing to help.

The fighter kicks the door open, and the evil wizard stands from his throne and commands his minions to attack.

The brawler intercepts the minions, dodging their blows and tossing them around the room, smashing them into pillars and getting them caught in the chandeliers. Meanwhile, the rogue jumps, rebounds off a pillar and back to the wall, and proceeds to run along it, out of reach of the minions' weapons as a few arrows bounce off the stones where he just was.

The wizard launches four rays of sickly-dark energy at the party, but the archer intercepts two of them with arrows, while the fighter bats one aside with his sword, and the brawler throws a minion into the path of the last, and it turns to dust in his grip.

The rogue reaches the wizard's throne and leaps off the wall, striking at the spellcaster from behind, but he flies right through the illusion and lands in a controlled roll, bowling down yet another minion who collapses as he discovers a dagger planted neatly in his throat.

The invisible wizard conjures a shockwave of force...

Awesome and I'd love to see the game play that way. Especially the rogue running up the arrows in flight, I love that image. I bet it's much too wuxia for many though.

Plus the wizard doesn't seem quite as prepared as the average 17th level Schrodinger's wizard usually is.

True, but I don't have any experience running casters that high-level. So mine is probably more like a level 11 party against a level 12 wizard. Kirth's is better, but I was 2 minutes faster; you have to make trade-offs, you know.

* A party of high level (17th level) martials is taking on a high-level caster (18th level caster, plus enough minions to make it a CR 20 encounter).
* The encounter is taking place in the caster's stronghold. Think, if you like, of Conan encountering the evil wizard at the top of his tower. This gives the caster the home field advantage plus all the prep time in the world.
* The party consists of a fighter, a rogue, gunslinger or a skirmisher ranger, and a brawler. No spells among them. More importantly, no magical items duplicating spells either. This is about martials themselves being cool, not martials pretending to be casters.
* The caster is RAW legal; no nerfing him. Simulacra of wish-granting outsiders, bags of marbles with symbols on them, teleporting to private demiplanes, all legitimate.
* The party is not allowed to do anything "wuxia," "weeaboo," "anime," or similar derogatory words.

The fighter kicks the door open, and the evil wizard stands from his throne and commands his minions to attack.

The brawler intercepts the minions, dodging their blows and tossing them around the room, smashing them into pillars and getting them caught in the chandeliers. Meanwhile, the rogue jumps, rebounds off a pillar and back to the wall, and proceeds to run along it, out of reach of the minions' weapons as a few arrows bounce off the stones where he just was.

The wizard launches four rays of sickly-dark energy at the party, but the archer intercepts two of them with arrows, while the fighter bats one aside with his sword, and the brawler throws a minion into the path of the last, and it turns to dust in his grip.

The rogue reaches the wizard's throne and leaps off the wall, striking at the spellcaster from behind, but he flies right through the illusion and lands in a controlled roll, bowling down yet another minion who collapses as he discovers a dagger planted neatly in his throat.

The invisible wizard conjures a shockwave of force that sweeps the room, but the fighter plants himself firmly, and it shatters around his heavy shield. The brawler grabs a shard of force from the air and stabs it into the chest of a particularly nasty minion. The archer takes out two of the minions sent flying by their own master's spell, pinning them to the stone wall and ceiling.

The rogue closes his eyes and concentrates on the energies around him. He continues to dodge the blows of the minions around him while the archer picks them off, and he detects an extra set of footsteps not accounted for by the visible combatants. He hurls a dagger through the air, where it explodes into shimmering light as it collides with the wizard's staff. The archer takes the chance to launch a trio of arrows, which ricochet off the pillars to approach from three different angles, two of which find their target and mark his location.

The wizard chants another spell, and an enormous creature with a gaping maw rises from the flagstones right in front of the fighter, and it bites down at him. The fighter grasps its fangs and holds the creature's mouth wide open, unable to close against the fighter's force. The archer launches a pair of arrows down its throat, causing it to roar in pain, while the brawler dives into its mouth and punches straight up, piercing its skull from below and ripping its brains straight out.

Meanwhile, the wizard has taken to the air and protected itself with a wall of wind, which the archer's arrows cannot penetrate. He instead waits for the rogue to leap into the air, then fires a series of arrows for his teammate to use as stepping stones as he follows the wizard into the air. The rogue leaps through the wall of wind and grapples with the spellcaster, hanging onto him to keep from falling. The wizard channels one last desperate spell into his hand, trying to touch the rogue, but the rogue grabs his arm, twists it around, and forces the energy-laden hand into the back of the wizard's own neck, causing the flesh to melt from his body.

Ditto on holding out for barkskin as a ki power. You should be able to get it at your 4th level of monk, but of course it won't scale as well if you multiclass.

Surely, after the 3 years of training that a Pathfinder goes through, you'd have a passing familiarity with basic buff spells. I don't see that as a role-playing issue. You're a professional adventurer, not some wide-eyed farm boy fresh out of the countryside.

Spells with a range of personal, such as true strike, cannot be made into potions. That's part of the Core rules, not a PFS-specific rule, but it is hidden and many people miss it. So mage armor is good (worth having as a back-up if nobody can use a wand on you), but you'll need UMD if you want a shield.

I think a big part of the issue is that in most Pathfinder settings, there's really no reason to have a "social persona" because there is no social stigma associated with adventuring. Typically, there's nothing keeping, say, a level 10 fighter or wizard from getting invites to the best parties. Merely possessing dangerous class features isn't something that needs hiding, so a mechanic dedicated to hiding it feels useless.

I think the concept would work better if the Vigilante was some sort of template which you could apply to any class. Then you could have a full adventuring party with synchronized dual-identities in a campaign where that feature would be useful for the group.

I agree. The different vigilante specializations indicate the developers wanted the vigilante to play any role in the party, so why not make the secret identity a feat (or, dare I suggest it?, a Variant Multiclassing option that doesn't come from a base class), so anybody can attach a secret identity to their class concept?

I think a big part of the issue is that in most Pathfinder settings, there's really no reason to have a "social persona" because there is no social stigma associated with adventuring. Typically, there's nothing keeping, say, a level 10 fighter or wizard from getting invites to the best parties. Merely possessing dangerous class features isn't something that needs hiding, so a mechanic dedicated to hiding it feels useless.

An impenetrable disguise at level 1 is just too powerful. I'd be much more comfortable with extra bonuses to Disguise checks, SR or bonuses to saves against divinations, and things like that. The very existence of the class ability invalidates everything that has been used for hiding identities up until now.

Disguise checks? Nah, just take a one-level dip into Vigilante and save yourself the skill ranks.

Ring of Undetectable Alignment? Nope, just a one-level dip into Vigilante and you're good.

Roleplaying a believable alibi, making a Linguistics check to forge identity papers, developing accomplices to cover for you? Never mind all that, it's right on my character sheet. I automatically win!

I gotta say, I don't like the auto-undetectability of the secret identity. A level 20 diviner shouldn't be stymied by a first-level ability. I think something like a caster level check of 15+level would be more appropriate.

- Skills appear to be folded into perks. Speculation is they will work as skills did in Skyrim.

Can you elaborate? I hope this doesn't mean they're moving to a "better with practice" kind of skill leveling. That was one thing I didn't like about Skyrim. I shouldn't have to turn into a petty thief just because I have to grind my Lockpicking and Pickpocket skills for when I need them for a just cause.

As others said, the invulnerability through the shield is part of the core premise for Captain America, as well as extremely high toughness, stamina, dexterity and strength. Surviving direct impact of supposedly lethal weapons without so much as a wound to show for it is not. During the entire "The Winter Soldier", the cap never took even a single bullet, for example.

Cap gets shot SEVERAL times by Bucky in the climax of the THE WINTER SOLDIER. At least three time, the last of which is through the back with a clear huge bloodstain on the front of his uniform. Which means that the uniform offered little to no protection to Cap. The uniform, at least during THE WINTER SOLDIER, is NOT bulletproof.

That right there might have been the impetus for Stark upgrading his suit. After all, he did get the magnetic shield recall thing in between Winter Soldier and Avengers 2; it's not unreasonable to think he got other hardware upgrades at the same time.

In essence, the player readied an aoo. You do not get to take an aoo on top of a readied action.

What? No. Absolutely not.

The rules allow you to take an attack of opportunity when the ogre provokes. They also allow you to ready an action to attack when he gets in range. Nothing in the rules for AoOs or readying actions says or even suggests that they cannot happen one right after the other.

The only problem with the OP's scenario is that the readied attack goes off first, because the ogre ran up to him before he started the bull rush. But after that readied action resolves, there's nothing preventing him from taking an AoO as normal.

Actually, one of the things I don't like about 5th Edition is how the mental stats are only good for spell stuff and some skills, but don't have any other mechanical or combat use. Wisdom saves are good to have, but Intelligence and Charisma saves rarely come up.

I understand they wanted to limit the number of skills there are in the game, but a couple Strength skills and even some Constitution skills (Concentration, Endurance, and Labor?) would be nice.

New proficiencies when your bonus goes up is a cool idea. But I'd probably say you only get half proficiency with skills (and you can pick it again to get full proficiency), since they're going to be more valued than tools or languages.

I kind of like the idea of using Charisma as a measure of luck. Not sure which PC should get hit by lightning in the storm? Have them make opposed luck checks.

Not just a different set of skills, but a larger set of skills - at the expense of something else. The only way I see to do that is to use one of your very rare feats to do so.

Any house rule thoughts on this?

Here's the house rule I suggested for Jiggy's game that I play in (which he mercilessly shot down!):

I wrote:

Every level, you get 2+Int mod "learning points" to apply toward gaining proficiency in a skill or tool. Tools and class skills take 10 points to earn proficiency, while cross-class skills take 15. Each subsequent proficiency costs 2 more.

So a 8-Int character can still gain one proficiency eventually. A 10 Int character could gain a couple at 6 and 12. My 12-Int ranger could pick up the rest of his class skills at 5, 9, and 13, plus a cross-class skill at 20. And so on.

But the rules do not say you must have a skill to try to do anything, it just gives you a bonus on the roll? So what you want is a 10% improvement on the roll, not the ability to try to do something.

If you use a point buy system you can ignore Con completely, keep it to the starting minimum, and put all the points the system will allow into Int, and if you have a willing DM you can start with a con of 5 and an Int of 20, as long as it fits the game you both want to play.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Of course I can use Stealth, even though I don't have it as one of my proficiencies. It was next in line for the skills I wanted, but I only got to pick three. So I'm only OK at it; for my character concept, I'd like to be actually good at it.

In PF, I could say "Oh, I don't have quite enough skill points to keep everything I want maxed. I'll have to give up some of my Con to get more Int so I can get another."

In 5e, I'm left saying "Oh, I don't get enough skill proficiencies to be good at all the things I want... Darn."

I don't really get the "customization" argument. It is a game of make believe, therefore a game that is 100 percent customization (you can make up whatever you and your friends are willing to deal with). It seems that some players are of the kind that must be able to hold up a RULE and say to the DM

"Because I selected X you must let me do Y"

instead of the kind of player who asks the DM

"I will try to do Y, what do I need to roll to succeed?"

What you're talking about isn't customization. That's just creative play.

I'm talking about customization along the lines of: "I can't quite get all the skills I want for my concept. I'd like to sacrifice some of my Con for more Int, so I'm a little more fragile, but I can do all the things I want to be good at."

I like making characters work differently than you'd expect (a brainy fighter, a swashbuckler with full plate and a heavy shield, etc.), but 5e doesn't really have room for that. But I assume that will change as more source books are released.

I think I finally came up with something I don't like in 5E: your skill selections are basically set in stone at 1st level. Outside of some very specific class features (like becoming a Lore bard), you're going to hit 20th level and be proficient in exactly the same set of skills you were proficient in at 1st level.

If your game uses feats, then you can exchange one of your stat boosts for a handful of proficiencies, but then it has to be a whole batch of skills that you suddenly learn. What if you've been adventuring for five levels and you feel like it would make sense for your character to pick up such-and-such a skill? The system doesn't support it; you would need to ask the GM for a houserule in order to learn something new.

I'm going to offer my PbP campaign a new houserule whereby each time you level up you can make effort toward eventually learning a new skill (or tool) proficiency.

I had a similar issue, but I'm more concerned with the fact that I can't make any sacrifices at character creation to get more skill proficiencies. I'm used to Pathfinder, where I can put a 12 in Int to get an extra skill/level, and did the same thing out of habit on my 5e Ranger.

I think there could, theoretically, be a way to make crafting work so that it wouldn't wreck the campaign. But what is there to gain?

The main points in favor of crafting in a regular game are that it:
-Lets you make custom items (which would have to remain banned in PFS because there is no GM supervision to prevent abuse)
-Makes sure you always get the items you want regardless of what loot you find (which is irrelevant in PFS, because you can buy anything you can afford, any time between scenarios)
-Saves money (which everyone is trying to think of a way to balance so it's not an advantage after all)

If you want to have the giants use dilute super-sized potions, and a medium creature uses 1 oz potions, then a large giant might make 8 ounce potions, and a huge giant might make 64 ounce potions. The 8 ounce potions could reasonably be drunk by a human as a standard action. The 64 ounce ones would be... difficult.

Now we need potion distillation rules ("your separation column gets a number of theoretical plates equal to the result of your Craft (alchemy) check..."), with a table of azeotropes for every legal spell.

What if we gather the villagers in the commons building, and Layali and I fortify on the roof (hopefully enough to cause disadvantage for attacking goblins) and fight at range, while Nathadriel and Leifa guard the doors? Any armed villagers can help out guarding on the ground level or as archers on the roof, depending on their strengths.

And instead of dying, why the hell didn't Eddie simply have a vasectomy or, if he was feeling dramatic, shoot his own testicles?

I thought the same thing. But Eddie was really never that bright. Of course, if he did that, the next scene would have played out different...

Spoiler:

*The team goes outside, and watches the black hole sucking the tops off of skyscrapers*
Eddie: [Rolling on the ground, clutching himself in pain] "F@&!, there's going to be a line at the hospital, isn't there?"

So I've heard a lot of people and articles claiming that "MRAs" are complaining about the movie, but has anyone actually seen these complaints? I remember a similar press barrage when the Star Wars VII trailer had a black stormtrooper. Everyone was talking about how upset racists were at the black stormtrooper, but someone went to look for these upset people and found only a single messageboard thread on the IMDB page.

Was there really any meaningful pushback, or is this just a new form of viral marketing? "We made our movie progressive with this one weird trick! Bigots hate us!"

I GM'd "Mists of Mwangi," and the PCs walked into a room full of stuffed monsters (chimeras, large bears, etc.) that would have easily outclassed their low-level party. I placed minis on the map to represent the stuffed creatures, and as experienced adventurers, the PCs assumed they would spring to life at any moment and attack. I stayed quiet while they all jockeyed for the perfect position, ready to pounce if any of the things so much as twitched.

Once they were all settled, the masks mounted on the walls (which I had not placed minis for yet) animate and get them from behind.

On another related matter, the other "chikification" in the movie, with Romanov being held captive by Ultron? yeah, that's not convincing either. Romanov is kidnapped after a scene where she is incredibly compatent (she was snatched out of the air during leaping alongside the cargo she was after between aircrafts, after all. Hard to say she was passive there).

If you want to have Ultron kidnap someone, it has to be one of the normals (try holding Thor imprisoned, why donthca) - Tony Stark, Hawkeye or Romanov. It can't be Stark because he was needed to create Vision. It can't be Hawkeye because he spent the entirety of the previous movie mind controlled by the bad guy so this movie was all about returning maximum heroic screen time to him. That leaves you with Romanov.

Really, she spent a lot of her screen time coming face-to-face with how out of place she really is. She can't fight as well as all the powered heroes, and she can't have a family like the other non-powered hero. At the party at the beginning, she listens to two of her teammates bragging about their girlfriends, but then she (the master manipulator who outwitted Loki), can't even get Banner interested.

When she's captured, she's faced with the possibility that she is just as much a liability as an asset to the team. But when she gets the chance to run off and find Banner and try to live happily ever after with him, she instead decides to stay behind and use the one thing she does have to offer, to train the new people. It was really a great character arc for her.

Have you checked out the Sleepless Detective prestige class? It gets a handful of investigative SLAs, moderate skills, and a bit of sneak attack. Could be pretty good going off of a Sleuth Investigator.